Office 2010 to be released to businesses on 12th May, public in June

The official Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering blog published an interesting update yesterday that I only just got around to reading, in which they announce some exciting news:

“For businesses, we will launch the 2010 set of products, including Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Visio 2010, and Project 2010 worldwide on May 12.”

General availability to the public is scheduled for June, though an exact date has not been confirmed. Microsoft also confirmed the previously-leakedOffice 2010 Technology Guarantee program, which means that if you buy and activate a full-price (i.e. not student or* employee discount) copy of Office 2007 between now and September 2010, you’re eligible for a free upgrade to Office 2010.

I’ve been using the Beta of Office 2010 on my laptop for a while now, and haven’t experienced a single problem. I’m eagerly looking forward to this release, especially since I’ve recently deployed an Exchange 2010 server at work and am looking forward to using the accompanying Outlook 2010 client full time (I have a personal rule against installing Beta software on business systems, otherwise I’d be using it already). OneNote’s move the ribbon UI also gives it a big usability boost on interactive whiteboards, and SharePoint 2010 also has some new data access features that I’m eager to try out on our intranet.

*Update: though the Technology Guarantee doesn’t technically apply, those buying through Microsoft student discount schemes such as Ultimate Steal have a separate but ultimately identical promotion.

For the average user, 2010 does not look significantly different from 2007. The ‘backstage’ view is the most obvious improvement, especially the print preview (which sounds petty, but it’s significant for the pupils). The improvements in picture manipulation are also handy. However, there are a lot of small-to-medium enhancements that add up to a significant amount of added value; certainly more than there used to be between previous versions.

We are on Software Assurance so the upgrade is no extra cost for us, which makes it much easier to justify. The Office 2010 Engineering blog, where I saw the above announcement, has also been a very interesting source of new feature highlights over the last 6-12 months.

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These were the trials, tribulations, and outright rants of an IT professional on the front lines of technical support in the UK education sector. Since moved on to pastures new.